What's on Your Mind?

For those who think a fake mustache is not fooling anybody, think again. Since 2023, the United Kingdom’s Online Safety Act has tasked social media and search engine companies with protecting young users by restricting harmful content and even resorting to age verification to access certain platforms. But unsurprisingly, the tech-savvy young generation is already developing ingenious ways to jump through the extra sets of hoops. A recent study by Internet Matters, a British child online safety organization, found that around one-third of children in the U.K. have bypassed safety measures such as age verification. The safeguard often requires users to take …

Amid an airline industry in crisis, Delta Air Lines found an unexpected way to cut corners: nixing its snack and drink service on flights under 350 miles long. Delta is doing away with its “Express Service” tier of in-flight food and drink, which previously offered basic amenities including water, tea, coffee, and two snack options to passengers on flights between 250 and 500 miles in length. Instead, all flights longer than 350 miles will get Delta’s full beverage and snack service—while all flights shorter than 350 miles will get no food or drink offerings at all. The news of Delta’s new policy comes just days after Spirit Airlines announced its near-immediate c…

What you read reflects who you are. Leaders like Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Indra Nooyi, and Mark Cuban advocate reading extensively to gain knowledge and challenge assumptions. At a minimum, reading widely develops a key business skill—making intelligent small talk. More importantly, reading and actively discussing ideas enhances critical thinking skills. Unfortunately, some studies show that only 16% of Americans read daily and for pleasure. Before the digital revolution, that number was well over 50%. Even more concerning, the latest statistics show that about a third of high school graduates have college-level reading skills. Leading a book club is…

Coinbase is cutting around 700 roles—or 14% of its workforce—because of AI, according to CEO Brian Armstrong. On Tuesday, Armstrong made a post on X that included the full email he sent to employees regarding the layoffs. “We’re currently in a down market and need to adjust our cost structure now so that we emerge from this period leaner, faster, and more efficient for our next phase of growth,” Armstrong wrote. Coinbase will not only cut costs and reduce head count but also “fundamentally” change how the company operates, he said. For one, Armstrong said the company would flatten its structure to a maximum of five layers between executives and employees.…

Most people think of California as the home of Hollywood liberals, neglecting to acknowledge its many rural and more conservative areas. Despite its modern reputation as a Democratic state, the world’s 4th largest economy has actually had more Republican governors. Without a clear Democratic frontrunner for the current election cycle, Republican candidates have an opening. Tonight, CNN is hosting a California governors debate to give the crowded candidate field a chance to make their case. Even those outside the state will be tuning in to see what trends might impact the larger midterm Congressional elections later this year. Here’s what you need to know bef…

We tend to treat our digital lives like a basement that never runs out of square footage. Thousands of unorganized files in your downloads folder, the monthly subscription for a project management tool you haven’t opened in a year, and a professional bio that still claims you’re passionate about trends that aren’t even trends anymore. In nerdy circles, we talk a lot about technical debt, which is the cost of choosing an easy solution now instead of a better one that takes longer. We rarely talk about digital rot: the accumulation of digital debris that slowly drains your focus, your storage, and your bank account. Clearing out the clutter is a tactical necessi…

When I first launched my business, I believed growth meant saying yes to everything. Every client who reached out, every opportunity that landed in my inbox, every late-night email that felt urgent. It all felt like momentum. I had spent years in the finance industry learning how to be reliable, responsive, and endlessly available. So when I went out on my own, I brought those habits with me. I believed boundaries were something you earned later, once you’d proven yourself. To make matters worse, there’s an unspoken belief in founder culture that “serious” entrepreneurs are always available, always hustling, always willing to sacrifice their lives for their businesses…

Today’s work environment is more challenging than ever. With layoffs, the uncertainty that comes from the intrusion of AI, and changing codes of conduct, tempers are bound to flare up. Insults may follow. If you are a recipient of one of the six following insults, here’s how you can best respond. 1. SHOUTING AT YOU Suppose you are in a meeting and your boss shouts at you, for example: “You didn’t hear me. I said we’d save that discussion for next time.” Don’t answer that rudeness with your own anger. That would only make things worse. Instead, respond to the substance of his words. You might say “Fine, we’ll postpone the discussion.” The point is to detach your…

Sara Blakely founded the $1.2 billion shapewear and apparel company Spanx with just $5,000 in savings, relying on offbeat marketing methods and a good bit of her own grit. The entrepreneur recently revealed that while working toward her success, she had help: a motivational cassette tape that shaped the way she thought about her future. Blakely spoke about the tape while addressing the graduates at Florida State University’s spring 2026 commencement ceremony. She told the crowd that when she was 16, her father gave her a tape called How to Be a No-Limit Person, by Wayne Dyer, a self-help author, motivational speaker, and licensed therapist with an EdD in counseling w…

After a long day in the office, you catch a sight of yourself in the bathroom mirror: Hair, frizzy. Skin, dry. Eyes, puffy. “Office air” has claimed yet another victim. The term, which has recently gone viral on TikTok, puts its finger on a complaint office workers have suffered in silence for years. Coined by content creator Noa Donlan, her videos documenting the phenomenon have recently amassed millions of views across TikTok and Instagram. “I first noticed it as a student, but it became unmistakable once I started working full-time four years ago,” Donlan told People in a recent interview. “I’d leave the house feeling put together, then catch myself in t…

Tony Soprano was a master of coercion. Through violence, extortion, and bribery, he rose to the top of his industry, crushing competitors and delivering strong margins, despite some unfortunate employee turnover along the way. But even Soprano began to suspect there might be another way. His psychiatrist, Dr. Jennifer Melfi, encouraged him to try a more collaborative approach, to become a better listener, and to engage with subordinates more thoughtfully. Soprano paused, thought about it, and, after considering the implications, asked, “Then how do I get people to do what I want?” That’s the Tony Soprano Problem. And today, every leader feels it. We want to be th…

Generative AI has made it possible for individuals to perform tasks that once required entire teams. Today, a single marketer can produce campaign assets, analyze data, and generate content at scale. A product manager can prototype, test, and iterate without relying on engineering; and developers can ship reams of high-quality code written by machines. The result is the rise of the “superpowered individual” who can do the work of many. It’s tempting to extrapolate from this that human collaboration is becoming obsolete. If AI can replicate or augment the cognitive contributions of multiple individuals, why bother with the friction of teamwork at all? In our work w…

It’s hard enough to publish a book, but getting people to buy it is an entirely different battle. As new platforms reshape how readers gather and interact online, authors are finding that sometimes platforms built to showcase writing can also double as powerful engines for discovery. The most high-profile example so far might be Girls creator Lena Dunham, who bolstered the traditional press tour for her new memoir Famesick with interviews and features on the newsletter platform Substack. In an interview with Arielle Swedback for her On Substack newsletter (which is published, of course, on Substack), Dunham made the case in blunt terms: “Someone I trust told me t…

It’s the three-row SUV of big-box retail. Target’s bold red shopping cart has always anchored customers inside a Target store, promising a middle-class fancy experience. For the next few years, Target will be replacing its fleet of half a million shopping carts with an even beefier model that promises to hold more stuff while making it easier to maneuver around the store. It’s the first all-plastic design Target will launch nationwide, while paradoxically being more sustainable than Target carts of yore. And yes, it’ll even hold your big dumb cup. “The cart for us is the first touchpoint that the guest meets right when they walk in the store,” says Sarah Deut…

No matter who you are, searching for work while unemployed is a difficult, sometimes soul-crushing endeavor. Across the country, job seekers are desperately looking for ways to stand out in an increasingly competitive job market as AI complicates the search process and career boards fill up with nonexistent “ghost jobs.” Still, some job seekers apparently enjoy an advantage that others don’t: they have wives who’ve stepped in, leveraging their own resources and networks to try and find them a job. Journalist and writer Anne Helen Petersen first noticed this phenomenon on her own Substack Culture Study. There, she saw multiple requests from women looking for job o…

Generative AI has done something strange to the economics of knowledge work: it has dramatically lowered the cost of generating ideas. Any reasonably capable professional with a chatbot can now produce a dozen plausible strategies, memos, product concepts, or marketing plans before lunch. In some cases, AI lowers the cost of execution too—but not nearly as far or as fast. Shipping even one of those ideas still takes weeks, months, or years. The result is already showing up across workplaces: more initiatives than teams can carry, more tools than anyone can learn, and more priorities than any reasonable person can hold in their head. Leaders keep layering on new wo…

Whataburger is rethinking the fast-food kids meal. The Texas-based burger chain just relaunched its Kids Whatameal with a new focus on an engaging packaging experience over a singular plastic toy. In a sense, the packaging is now the toy: The meals come in a bright, white-and-orange box with a handle on top, an interactive maze printed on the side, and one of five collectible sticker packs inside. “We wanted to build something that was a bit more intentional and experience-led,” Scott Hudler, Whataburger’s chief marketing officer, tells Fast Company. But the experiential strategy is first visible in the food options themselves—essentially by providing kids wit…

A yearslong battle between Sony PlayStation and its customers might soon be coming to an end after the approval of a preliminary settlement agreement for a class-action lawsuit on April 29. The lawsuit dates back to 2023, involving Sony’s decision to stop selling game-specific vouchers by third-party vendors, meaning the company would no longer allow the purchase of digital download cards from retailers like Amazon, GameStop, or Walmart, leaving Sony as the sole seller. Plaintiffs argue that the company violated federal antitrust law by eliminating competition for the sale of the game-specific vouchers, according to a press release by the plaintiffs’ law firm. …

Nearly every solopreneur starts their business saying “yes” to everything. After all, you’re trying to get clients and build a business. Revenue is unpredictable, and your brain treats every opportunity like it might be the last. But when you work for yourself, every “yes” comes at a cost. Agreeing to one project means declining another — or giving up time you can’t get back. Defaulting to “yes” is how solopreneurs end up overcommitted, underpaid, and working on projects that don’t move their business forward. Saying no is a business skill and, like any skill, it gets sharper with practice. Saying no to bad-fit clients Not every client who reaches out is…

The AI data center building boom isn’t fueling just water shortage concerns and GPU-maker Nvidia’s coffers. It is now also firmly making memory chip makers and their investors significantly richer. Yesterday, two of the largest memory makers, Micron Technology and Sandisk, saw their stock prices soar more than 11% in a single trading session. And those gains are small potatoes compared to their five-day increases. But why is this happening? Here’s what you need to know. What’s happened? Yesterday, all four of the Nasdaq’s major memory chip makers saw their stock prices jump. Those four memory makers include: Micron Technology, Inc. (Nasdaq: MU) Sa…

A large Applebee’s franchisee that filed for Chapter 11 protection in March is seeking to close additional restaurants as it works its way through the bankruptcy process and sale of its assets, a new court filing reveals. NRPF Group Two, which operates roughly 50 Applebee’s Neighborhood Grill + Bar locations in Florida, Georgia, and Alabama, has asked a federal court for permission to reject the leases on five additional properties. Most of the Applebee’s restaurants associated with the properties appeared to be still open this week, though a few were marked as temporarily closed on Google as of Wednesday. Atlanta-based NRPF Group Two said in the court filing …

Owners of some iPhones are in line to get cash payments of up to $95 from Apple after the company on Tuesday reached a $250 million settlement in a class-action lawsuit for false advertising of its artificial intelligence capabilities. Apple The Presidenteted new AI features for its virtual assistant Siri when it rolled out the iPhone 16 in 2024, part of new software updates that the company billed as “Apple Intelligence.” The company has been scrambling to keep up with tech rivals amid the AI boom but still hasn’t delivered on the Siri revamp two years later. The lawsuit, filed on behalf of U.S. consumers in the San Francisco federal court for the Northern District of…